Chapter 5: Hiding

It comes for him, as he knew it would. It was foolish to try and hide from it.

In the middle of the night I was woken by screaming. My heart pounded as I jolted awake. It was coming from the room across from mine. Alex was sleeping in there.

I opened my bedroom door and saw Jim trying to open Alex's door. He turned and opened his mouth, about to say something to me. When the door exploded.

The force knocked Jim back down the hallway and pushed me to my knees. A single root shot out of the splintered door and wrapped itself around my throat. I clawed at it frantically. Alex was still screaming but I couldn't see into the room.

My lungs begged for air and my vision swam. As I struggled a familiar voice whispered in my ear.

"I'm going to take everything that you have so that you come back to me. You weren't supposed to leave" the root abruptly let me go and the screaming stopped. I retched and gasped for air.

"A-Alex!" I could hardly speak still but the silence from Alex's room was not right. He should be crying. Or calling for me.

I stood unsteadily and moaned at the wreck that was left of the room. Holes in the floor showed where the roots had come out of the ground. All the items in the room were thrown everywhere and the bed I had put Alex in was empty.

"No..." I covered my face with my hand and felt myself sinking into a pit of despair. The Crimson Tree had taken my boy from me. I heard a groan from outside in the hallway and remembered that Jim was here somewhere.

"Jim! Jim! The Tree, it’s taken... Jim?!" My friend was half standing with one hand against his side. Blood leaked from the wound between his fingers. The poor bloke must have tried to come to my aide. Only to be struck down by the Tree.

"Looks worse than it is" he wasn't a very good liar. His face was gray. His knees shaking. I sat down and he collapsed next to me. We both stared at the tattered hallway and the splintered door.

"I told you it would come for you Alexander. Now look, I'm bleeding all over this nice new carpet and your boys gone" Jim was never one to honey coat anything. Not even when he was injured.

"I thought we would be safe at least for one night... I never thought it would come here. I never meant for this" I shouldn't have come here with Alex. I should have kept moving. Made it harder for this to happen.

"I'm sorry Jim, when you’re fighting fit again I'll help you fix this place up and then you can have a new door put in" Jim was hurt and lying in a dark hallway but I had to go. I couldn't stay and help, every moment lost was another moment the Tree could hurt Alex.

"Just go Alexander, you look terrible. Not as bad as me but still. Find your boy and if you live, come back and we can talk about you repaying me for all this" Damn it Jim. He wanted for me to leave him here. To bleed out in his own apartment. The worst part was that I wanted to go. What kind of friend did that make me?

"I won't be gone forever Jim... I'll come back. Even if it’s to make sure you get... to make sure you get a burial worthy of a man with your courage" I stood from the debris and turned away from Jim. I didn't want to look at him anymore. Didn't want to see him dying while I walked away.

Walking out of that apartment felt like the worst thing I had ever done in my life. Even though I hadn't been the one who hurt Jim I felt like I was killing him with every step I took.

I knew where Alex was and as hard as it was to leave Jim. I would feel so much worse if something happened to Alex because I wasn't fast enough. I let his mother slip away from me and I wasn't willing to do the same with Alex.

"I'm going to rescue him Lucy... I don't know how but I will" I waited at the bus stop down the road from Jim's. I wondered if the little boy inside the Tree ever missed his dad. If he was scared and confused.

Maybe... If I asked nicely he would let Alex go. If I agreed to play, if I gave up my life for Alex. Would he allow that? Or would we both die. I guess I'd have to find out when I found it again.

 The creature that haunted me in every way possible. I would beg the Crimson Tree on my hands and knees if I had to. I would save Alex.

Author's Note

Off he walks down fools road.